The Procrastinating Writer

I took a little time off school after completing the first semester of my junior year at the University of Notre Dame. After being out for about a year, I realized I should start making a real push to finally graduate before I was out for so long that it’d be difficult to go back. To help the process along, I enrolled in a class at Saint Mary’s College, Notre Dame’s all-women sister school across the street run by the Sisters of the Holy Cross. The classes were cheaper there when taken one at a time, and I was able to transfer the credits easily to ND upon completion.

Even though I went to school right across the street (and spent nearly every fall of my childhood driving from West Virginia to Indiana for Notre Dame football games), I’d never really spent much time on the SMC campus. To avoid looking like a clueless tool on my first day of class, Carey and I decided to take a walk around the quaint campus on a beautiful late-summer afternoon before the start of the semester.

After wandering around for a while and then camping out on a bench to smoke an offensive amount of cigarettes—how our walks usually ended up—we headed back to the car. We’d parked in a small lot in front of the sisters’ convent, and although the lanes between cars were two-way, only a single car could drive through at a time without causing an accident.

I pulled out of our spot and started heading down the row toward the exit when I saw an old woman backing up out of a space. It was obvious from her movements that she didn’t see us approaching the rear of her car. To let her know we were there, I laid down a solid honk of my car horn to alert her. While there was some irritation behind the action (due mostly to my tendency toward vehicular impatience), it truly was meant to be a simple warning about our presence to avoid an accident. I mean, that’s what a car horn is for, right?

The woman’s window was open, as was mine, and as soon as I pulled my hand off the horn, I heard her shriek and stutter a nervous, trilled “Oh, my goodness!” She then threw the car into drive and slammed on the gas. The car lunged forward in one short burst and hit the small tree directly in front of her.

Now, given that she hadn’t yet backed up all that far, all she needed to do was just stop her backward motion and wait for us to pass. She wasn’t moving that quickly, and neither were we. But the blaring of the horn must have startled and rattled her, leading her to carry out one of the craziest over-corrections I’ve ever witnessed from a driver.

Upon seeing this, I did the only thing that made sense in the moment: burst the fuck out laughing. I couldn’t help it; I completely lost it. Tears were streaming down my face and carrying my black eyeliner along with it (I should have sprung for waterproof.). I could barely catch my breath and kept choking through cackles, which at one point were so intense that you couldn’t even hear the laughter anymore. In fact, I had to pull into a parking space, as I kept veering off course every time a new wave of laughter hit me. I just couldn’t keep it together.

Every once and a while, something strikes me as particularly funny, hits me in just the right way, and taps into this side of me filled with uncontrolled laughter. I lose it—and I mean completely lose it like a loony toon. And while I’m somewhat ashamed to admit it—as it really doesn’t make me come off too well—one of the surest ways to get me to that place is when I partake in a little schadenfreude and watch people fall down. Show me a fail video compilation of slips, falls, and people passing out, and you’ll damn near have to give me a breathing treatment to help restore the oxygen to my brain after I finally regain my composure.

Given all that, this moment was truly one of the most superbly funny things I’d ever witnessed in my life. After I started pulling myself together a bit, though, I realized the other side of the car was awfully quiet. I turned to look at Carey and noticed that she didn’t seem even the least bit amused.

“Why aren’t you laughing?” I heaved.

“Because it’s not funny! That poor little old lady just hit a tree, and you’re laughing your ass off about it. She could have been hurt,” she said, shaking her head back and forth.

“I made sure to glance over. She wasn’t hurt. Probably a little upset about hitting that damn tree, though. Come on! Don’t you see the humor in this?”

“What humor?”

“All that woman had to do was brake until we passed and everything would have been fine, but instead, she panicked, slammed the car into drive, and lurched forward fast enough to hit the damn tree in front of her! In order to avoid an accident, she caused one. It’s hilariously ironic!”

“I don’t see it. I feel bad for her.”

“Well, maybe if she can’t handle braking, she shouldn’t be driving in the first place.” (Here’s that driving impatience I spoke of.)

“Whether she should be driving is beyond the point. It’s still sad. I think your horn scared her.”

“Good. It was supposed to. I wasn’t about to have my driver’s door slammed into by a lady who couldn’t see over the back of her fucking headrest.”

“I just feel bad for her, you know?”

Carey, being the kind-hearted worrier she is, truly felt for the woman. I, on the other hand, decided to take things one step further. For some reason, I thought adding some fictional flair and more of a backstory to the situation would help Carey see the humor I thought she was missing out on.

I should probably throw in a disclaimer here. Although I’ve found the following imagined events to be hilarious, some have called my interpretation sad, depressing, and disturbing. I’ve even been called a sick bastard for the hilarity I find in it, although that label has always been applied in as loving a way as possible. No matter the reactions of others, though, I still fail to see the wickedness. Maybe I should get that checked.

“OK, how about this,” I started, still laughing as I pulled back onto the road. “Picture it: She’s a little old nun at a semi-cloistered convent, and she only gets one day per month out in the real world to do whatever she wants. She decides that for her day this month, she wants to go for a drive and experience society.” I started laughing hysterically again.

“That’s not funny!” Carey said, horrified at my new take on the situation.

“Wait—I’m not done.”

“Go on, but I’m not sure I like where this is going.”

“So, it’s her one day per month she’s allowed out, and she’s pulling out of her parking space in the communal convent car when she hears a car horn that makes her jump. Not knowing what to do, she puts the car quickly back into drive and, reacting too nervously, ends up slamming into the tree in front of her!”

“What’s your point?”

“Well, what if this event was so traumatizing that she decides the world is a scary place where too many frightening things occur,” I said, starting to laugh so hard again I was struggling for breath. “She decides never to go out again for fear something bad will happen and stays cloistered in the convent for the rest of her life!”

I was laughing so hysterically that tears were cascading down my face again, and I had to stop on the side of a campus road to compose myself.

“That’s terrible!” Carey gasped. “That poor woman. At least before, the situation was maybe mildly humorous in an ironic sort of way, but this is just sick.”

“Come on, it’s funny! It’s not like it happened or anything. But it would be kind of pathetically comical if that were the situation. You know, amusing in a sick and twisted way.”

“You’re such a douchebag,” Carey said—as lovingly as possible—while shaking her head back and forth.

My friends often joke about my sick sense of humor, and the labels of “asshole” and “douchebag” are frequently attributed to my character when things like this happen. They’re always tossed my way with love and gentle good humor, however, because these people also know I’m the same person whose heart will break if an animal is hurt or in need. There’s just something about people doing stupid shit, though, that hits me just right and turns me into the exemplification of the labels thrown my way.

I spent the rest of the day randomly cracking up, garnering questioning looks from those around me who probably thought I was talking to an imaginary friend and had a mental disorder. Apparently, it makes people uncomfortable when a girl standing in line to buy cigarettes seems curiously amused by absolutely nothing.

This reaction continued for weeks, and every time I thought of that lady, my eyes would start to twinkle and a smile would form on my lips. Carey would see this start to happen, look at me, roll her eyes, and say, “You’re thinking about that poor old woman again, aren’t you?” Unapologetically, I would respond with an enthusiastic nod and continue my convulsive cackling.

Since Carey still didn’t get the humor in my extended, fictional take on the situation, I began asking for other people’s opinions. First, I’d regale them with the initial story of what had actually taken place. Then, I’d tack on my theoretical version containing my idea about the traumatized little nun and the effect the whole event had on her.

The first part would usually evoke a small chuckle from people, especially when I made sure to use my nervous old lady voice when recounting the part when she shrieked “Oh, my goodness!” However, the reactions I got for the next part were not what I’d hoped.

People didn’t find my story amusing! I didn’t get it. I came across one or two people who found my epilogue to the tree incident even funnier than the first part, but most reacted in much the same way as Carey. When I’d finish my retelling, people would usually follow up with comments along the lines of, “That’s definitely something only you would think of, Joanna.” or “That first part was kind of funny, but you’re sick for adding the rest, although it doesn’t surprise me you did. What made you even think to add that on?!?”

I’ve thought about this a lot since that day, and I still don’t know where I came up with her backstory. Truthfully, it’s probably best I not delve too deeply into the inner workings of my mind to find out. I should just leave it alone, deem everybody else crazy, and continue living in my own little world where old ladies slamming into trees can bring me years of laughter and amusement.

Even as I sit here and write this, I can picture my fictional, permanently-self-cloistered nun sitting in a bare room with a habit on, writing at a desk that looks like it’s right out of the times of Saint Francis of Assisi. She’s journaling about her day in the convent, and she makes a notation at the bottom of the page about how this was supposed to be her yearly day of leave when she can experience the life of a layperson. She remarks how, even though the outing might have been enjoyable, she tried to find just as much satisfaction from wiping down the pews in the chapel. At least in there, she observes, there isn’t the possibility of a crazy girl with road rage giving her a near heart attack that results in the permanent scarring of an innocent maple tree. Yes, she thinks to herself, even though today was just like every day before it and all those yet to come, it truly is safer inside these walls and behind these heavy wooden doors.

Call me an asshole if you must, but sure enough, as I’m thinking about this now, I’m can feel the twinge of a smile and a bubble of laughter rising up from within me.